The cellular proteome is constantly exposed to a wide variety of toxic stresses. These include external stresses, such as elevated temperatures, radiation damage and pharmacological agents as well as physiological stresses encountered during cellular proliferation, differentiation, inflammation and aging. In all organisms, inductionof the stress response is essential for the maintenance of protein homeostasis and modulation of the stress response plays a critical role in life-span regulation and aging-related diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease. The 2015 Gordon Conference on Stress Proteins in Growth, Development & Disease is shaping up to be one of the most exciting and important meetings in this research area. It will highlight the many cutting edge advances in the field, emphasizing a broad range of topics, including exciting developments related to stress sensing, signaling, and gene expression, diseases of protein folding and conformation, roles of stress genes in metabolism, growth and development, stress gene modulation of infection and pathophysiological states, the cell biology of stress, and the roles of stress in aging. This conference, which is the eighth in this series, will be held July 5th-10th at the Il Ciocco Resort n Lucca, Italy. The chair of this meeting is Dr. Ursula Jakob (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI) and the Vice Chair is Dr. Kevin Morano (UT Health Medical School in Houston, Texas). For the 2015 program, we have striven to improve our gender balance in the speaker representation, and of the 31 internationally recognized speakers who have accepted our invitation to give talks, 35% are women scientists. We also set aside time for 16 extended (i.e. 12 minutes) and 20 novel, two-minute poster talks at the end of the morning session to give investigators a chance to present key findings from their research and attract participants to their posters. Preference will be given to younger scientists and to those from under-represented groups. The meeting schedule is also prepared to ensure that new and emerging themes in stress biology and different model systems are equally represented. In addition, meeting attendance will be limited to 150 to facilitate effective interactions and discussions. The formal scientific program together with more informal round-table discussion will enhance the dissemination of new information and the formation of new collaborations, which are invaluable for deeper understanding of the versatile roles of stress proteins in human health, aging and disease.